Must Love Dogs Read Online Free PDF

earrings. Bugle barrettes for her hair. A way to keep track of her progress, to make sure she doesn’t miss any instruments.”
    I rolled the story around a bit. I liked it. It was much more interesting than the possibility that money didn’t buy taste and Marlene was simply a horrible dresser. As I pondered whether to embellish the story or let it rest, I flicked my wineglass with a fingernail, trying to play a note. Instead I created a mini tidal wave that splashed over the edge. Since it was white wine and not red, I rubbed it discreetly into my jeans, then asked, “So, what about the brother?”
    “He’s the CEO of Wilson Electronics. Big bucks. Supposed to be brilliant. Currently unattached.”
    “I can see why. That nose hair.”
    A big-sister look came over Carol’s face. I could feel a lecture in the air, and stiffened in anticipation. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Everybody has something. Dennis had ear wax when we met. Gobs of it. But I didn’t let that get in the way of the big picture. I waited an appropriate length of time, and then — ”
    “Bought him a box of Q-tips?”
    “No, no, no. I discreetly pointed it out, pretending it was the first time I noticed. I think I told him how relieved I was to find out that he wasn’t absolutely perfect.”
    Disgusting, I thought. Dennis had lots of other faults. He was an asshole, for starters, but there was probably no point breaking that particular bit of news to Carol. I took another sip of wine and waited for something conversational to pop into my head.
    “Kevin used to sit on the toilet for hours, reading the newspaper. With the bathroom door open and his pants around his ankles.”
    “They all do that.”
    I hadn’t realized that. I wondered for a minute if Kevin and I would still be together if I had known. “It wasn’t a very erotic pose. It got so that every time we made love I’d think of it. Him on the toilet. That and the sound he made gargling. Sort of like this….” I tilted the last bit of wine into my mouth, and tried to gargle like Kevin. Instead, I choked and laughed at the same time. A smidgen of wine exited through my nose.
    “Yeah, and, meanwhile, you’re such a class act, Sarah. Here, I’ll go get us some more.”
    While Carol was refilling our glasses in the kitchen, I tried to isolate the exact thing that had made my marriage to Kevin not work out. Besides him screwing around with another woman. I don’t know, it just seemed that at first so much time was taken up by when and where and how often we’d have sex. Then after that, there was all that planning for the wedding. Then looking for a house, and finding it, and decorating it, and having people over to see it.
    Until one day, we looked at each other across the kitchen table, and I realized we had absolutely nothing to say. I suppose it was probably just time to have children. We’d talked about it some, but Kevin was never quite ready. I was thirty-five, then thirty-six, then thirty-seven, which seemed way past ready and getting close to too late.
    But instead of children, Kevin decided to have Nicole. Nikki. Chatty as hell and ten years younger than I am. I found out, he left, and at this very minute, Kevin and Nikki were probably having my children. I hoped never to know for sure, even though I was certain the information would find me immediately. Someone would probably call to say when they’d had sex without birth control.
    God hates glib
. I could almost hear my mother say it, although I’d lost the precise sound of her voice shortly after she died. That and the sophisticated crunch she made when she chewed cornflakes, a sound I tried my whole childhood to imitate.
God hates ugly and God hates a smarty-pants
were also part of our family lexicon. Quoting God in this way was not at all about religion, but about bringing in enough clout to give the speaker irrefutable authority on a subject.
    God hates glib
. We all said it to each other, yet we were proud of our